heavensreader | [IC Inbox -- Snowblind]

I knew he'd tell you. But... you're still talking to me.

What you did was very different from what Watson did. Yeah? He involved himself because he thinks it's his job to play police, and it turns out that he is a fucking horrible policeman.

[Alfie doesn't usually swear when he's talking to Kesara, but this time, he slips.]

House is your friend. You were affected by the situation.

I thought s- House is not my friend now.

[She snaps it off. No argument.]

But that's what I thought about Ecks - that is, I wanted to make sure she's all right, because he is her teacher. Telling her about Duster was a mistake, but, it isn't that she's not involved. Even though Duster thought so.

Kesara - you interfered, but you had reason to. Real reason. And there may be consequences, because you're involved now, but those consequences will not involve Duster hurting you.

He did promise.

[She mutters it like it's a talisman. It'll protect her.]

Duster said it's finished. I said fine. And House didn't want Ecks to do it, so he probably thinks it's finished, too. But something else will happen sooner or later. All of us know that.

Yeah, what makes you sure?

Because things keep happening. Because of who we are - not all, but enough of us. Because when people are hungry and cold and unhappy they always fight. You know.

Next time, I think it'll be something new. This will affect it, if it involves House, Duster, Ecks, Watson. But it won't be the same battle, repeated endlessly.

But it might be the same war. War isn't one battle, is it? But it's sides and strategists and alliances and that is still all the same war. Because there are sides, so people use them.

Yeah, it might be. Or it might not. Wars do end.

Do you really think, if we just don't do anything at all, that it will all stop - the people fighting, and other people getting dragged into it - people that matter to us? Do you really?

[She sounds highly doubtful, but not sarcastic. It would be very nice if he could believe it enough to convince her.]

Kesara, I don't think there's any way to stop people from fighting. Not people this different from each other, not forever. If this were home and everybody involved was a member of my gang, I'd handle things differently. But it's not, and they're not. Yeah?

But if they were -

[Is she being logical, or only stubborn? It's confused in her own head. There's a fretting fear that keeps her pushing, angry that he isn't giving her the answers she wants...]

That's what I keep thinking. That is how you make people who are different stop fighting. By making them all part of one thing - a regiment, or gang, or expedition.

And how are you gonna do that?

[He at least doesn't want to dismiss her ideas without hearing them first.]

I've been thinking about it... but I think I need to think some more.

[She'd been hoping he'd have an idea or two. But if this is the challenge, then she is not giving up on it quite yet.]

You've got three options, yeah? You try to bring everyone under your banner voluntarily, but then you have to deal with the people who won't come, and figure out how to enforce your control the people who do. You could also try to do it by force, and deal with rebellion, with lack of loyalty, with fights against you.

[Those are two of the three options. The third is not trying at all.]

[Actually, the third option is...]

Or you try to get them to think it was all their idea to come under someone's banner. Not me, maybe, but - someone who's better for it than me. Someone older. A man.

[She's not making any proposals. Just saying.]

And then if there isn't loyalty, it's other people's problem too.

Someone like Captain Rogers?

[He sounds a little dry.]

[Kesara makes a less than satisfied noise.] A lot of people used to trust him, but they don't know the new one. I wouldn't just trust the new one. Besides... the old one was a good man, but, the sort of people who'd be loyal to him are not the sort of people who cause trouble anyway, aren't they?

I didn't trust the old one, either. I believe he had good intentions, right, but I would not put my life on the line for him, and I would not follow his orders. What would you have done about people like me, or about people who would cause trouble?

[This is one of those things that Kesara needs to think about. It's a long minute before she answers.]

I've heard that criminals only follow brute strength. But that's ridiculous. The smugglers I travel with, Roksann and Lao Dian... Roksann is much stronger than Lao Dian. She can shoot and fence better than a British officer, and he's a cripple. But when he says to do something, she listens to him because she knows he'll get her what she wants. It's not because he's a good man, either. It's because she knows, when you listen to him, good things happen... and when you don't, bad things do.

But I don't feel that way about Steve, yeah? I don't feel that way about anybody here.

Do you feel that way about anybody back home, Mr. Solomons? Or, when you were younger?

When I was very young, I felt that way about my dad.

I've told you I was in a war, yeah?

[Oh, this sounds like a story. Kesara's attention, already focused, immediately strains to go up yet another notch.]

You did, but, you didn't say anything about your father in it.

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